This invention relates to the solving of configuration problems by means of a computer acting as a configuration aid for either a salesperson or the customer himself. E.g. configuring a car, i.e. choosing a specific combination of engine, paint, accessories, etc. or e.g. configuring a computer system comprising different kinds of CPU's, discs, monitors, communication units, etc. will typically result in a huge and very complicated problem because of a great number of choices to be made and an overwhelming system of constraints between the different elements to be decided on.
A computer system intended to solve a configuration problem is a special application of artificial intelligence where the problem can be stated in terms of a set of selectable elements (e.g. engines, colours . . . ) and a number of relations (constraints) between these selectable elements (e.g. convertible only available in the colour Monte Carlo yellow).
In the following a selectable element is anything that can be included or excluded in a configuration. It can be a physical object (e.g. a car or a computer system as mentioned), an attribute (e.g. the colour red or the texture pattern of a carpet) or something abstract (e.g. a specific number of trips between home and work or a particular type of contracts).
Typically, selections are constrained by previous choices of elements. If for instance a shopper in a supermarket wants only to buy ecological products he may not be able to buy coffee. Thus, when selecting parts or features in a configuration system there should never be any available selections which are in fact invalid. This might seem very easy but is in fact one of the main difficulties in interactive configuration systems, as will be understood more fully from the following description.
The shopper from before could choose not to buy only ecological products. He may also choose not to buy coffee even if it is available.
An interactive computer configuration system is an aid for the salesperson or the customer to make it just as easy to grasp and configure a huge configuration problem as it is for a customer in the supermarket to know himself that he has bought exactly what he needs to treat his dinner guests according to his own decisions, and the expectations of the guests and the information supplied by the supermarket such as display of key figures, descriptions, graphics and video which change according to the customer's current focus and history.